A Code of Conduct for Methodist Ministers

A CODE OF CONDUCT FOR METHODIST MINISTERS

1.“Watching over one another in love” is the traditional hallmark of the Methodist experience and understanding of discipleship. It involves a free-will commitment to share in the discerning of God’s Spirit at work in the world through conferring with others, and a gracious offering of oneself to give and receive the fruits of that discernment so that all may grow in holiness (personal and social) and engage in worship and mission to the best of their ability.

2.In other words, it is the Methodist way of exercising oversight. It begins in the promises and commitments made in baptism, confirmation and becoming a member of the Methodist Church. Its classic expression spiritually is in the Covenant Service. Its classic embodiment practically is in Class and Band meetings (and their modern equivalents), and in the Conference (and its subsidiary meetings in Local Churches, Circuits, Districts and the wider Connexion).

3.The process of conferring and discerning always has to be open to the Spirit bringing new insights and fresh revelations of truth. But it also has to begin from somewhere; and it then needs to check that any apparent new insights that emerge are of God.

4.The primary starting point (or source of content) and checking point has always been the Bible. That is why the holiness being overseen is often termed ‘scriptural’holiness. The first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures set out the Torah: the story of God’s creative ordering of the universe and guidelines for how to live in harmony with its principles (hence better translated as ‘instruction’ than ‘law’). The biblical prophets then constantly take those principles and re-contextualise them in the light of changing historical circumstances. Similarly, the New Testament shows the early church taking the teachings Jesus had given to his followers who were predominately Galileans, Jerusalemites or other people “of the land”, and re-applying them to Greek-speaking Jews from the diaspora, Samaritans and Gentiles throughout the Roman world.

5.Early Methodism, as the name suggests, developed its own method of pursuing holiness in worship and mission. That method involved developing guidelines, and setting out aspirations and expectations, which applied the insights of scripture to the lives of the people. These were often termed ‘rules’, not in the sense of a legal code of commandments but of recommended standards for living and touchstones for reflection.

6.It is as if, in emphasising “watching over one another in love”, Wesley saw the process of living by Rule as a means of grace. He defined ‘means of grace’ as “outward signs, words, or actions, ordained of God, and appointed for this end, to be the ordinary channels whereby He might convey to [sc human beings] preventing, justifying, or sanctifying grace”. He then immediately went on to quote the Book of Common Prayer’s phrase, “the means of grace and the hope of glory” before summarising the Book of Common Prayer’s definition of sacraments as “an outward sign of inward grace, and a means whereby we receive the same”[1].

7.Predominant among these rules for the early Methodists were The Character of a Methodist (1742),the Nature, Design and General Rules of the United Societies (which included the rules for the Class Meeting) (1743); and the Rules of the Bands(1744).

8.Within the general calling of all the “people called Methodist” to “live by Rule”, there were focused callings and Rules for those performing particular functions (eg “the Rules for Singing”) or fulfilling particular offices. Of particular relevance for our current concerns are the group of Anglican priests and lay preachers that Wesley began to gather around him as his itinerant “Helpers” or “Assistants”, and with whom he held Conference. Over the years, and particularly as Methodism began to develop from being a movement within the Church of England to being a Church (and then Churches) in its own right, this group gradually developed into an order of ministers.

9.Wesley’s Twelve Rules of a Helper (1753, being a revised version of the Rules of an Assistant 1744)are therefore very important. They are clearly a Rule of Life. They are equally clearly a Code of Conduct.

10.The Twelve Rules and other sections relating to the office of Preachers and Pastors were among the material included in the compilations of the Minutes of the Conference that were known as the Large Minutes and revised and re-issued in 1753, 1763, 1770, 1772, 1780, and 1789. A copy of the Large Minutes or J S Simon's Summary of Methodist Law and Discipline which superseded them in 1905 was given to all those preachers and helpers who were received into full connexion with the Wesleyan Conference in the late 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. The inscription in them (which persisted until Methodist Union in 1932) said “As long as you freely consent to, and earnestly endeavour to walk by, these Rules, we shall rejoice to acknowledge you as a fellow-labourer”.

11.Further material was created in 1820 in what became known as the Liverpool Minutes. It was intended to supplement the Twelve Rules of a Helper HelperHand those other parts of the Large Minutes which related to the duties of Preachers and Pastors. It stated that both those documents should be read frequently and studied carefully. The new material was intended to re-apply their principles in the changed circumstances of “the present age” in the first quarter of the 19th century, which included the first recorded reduction in membership of Wesleyan Methodism (although Primitive Methodism was growing exponentially in the same period, particularly in the Midlands). The results were a set of resolutions to which those in full connexion with the Conference committed themselves, with a view to achieving “… the increase of Spiritual Religion among our Societies and Congregations, and … the extension of the work of God in our native country”. They too set out guidelines, and criteria by which performance could be supervised and evaluated.

12.These resolutions in the Liverpool Minutes were revised in 1885, and remained for many years as a blueprint for ministry. A new set of Resolutions on Pastoral Work was then adopted by the Conference in 1971. This occurred in a period when the context for ministry was changing rapidly, leading to a series of theological restatements of the nature of ordained ministry. In 1960 there had been a statement on Ordination in the Methodist Church which was grounded in the major 1937 statement The Nature of the Christian Church. There then followed reconsiderations of ordained ministry. Some were prompted by ecumenical considerations in such as the Anglican-Methodist Conversations. Others came in response to pressure to diversify the contexts in which ministry was exercised so that, for example, it could be exercised in what were known as the ‘sectors’ as well as traditional circuit appointments. This led to the 1974 statement on Ordination.

13.Throughout all this period, and since, the important dynamic of “watching over one another in love” in ministry, and in exercising accountability and receiving support for it, has been expressed through weekly staff meetings; the response to the question asked during a communion service at the Presbyteral Session of each District Synod (“Does each of us continue faithfully to discharge the obligations laid upon us by the ministry which we have received from the Lord Jesus to testify to the gospel of the grace of God? Do we continue to believe and preach our doctrines and administer our discipline?”); and the answer of each District in the Presbyteral Session of the Conference to the Annual Inquiry about the character and discipline of presbyters and presbyteral probationers.

14.The whole process has been summed up in the Ordinal for Presbyters in the 1999 Methodist Worship Book. After outlining a number of tasks of presbyteral ministry under the heading “In God’s name you are to…” it goes on to say, “These things are your common duty and delight. In them you are to watch over one another in love.”

15.Since the 1974 statement on Ordination, however, the Methodist Church has also closed the Wesley Deaconess Order, opened a Methodist Diaconal Order for both men and women, and declared that Order to be an order of ministry in the Church as well as a form of dispersed religious order. Although there are differences of emphasis between it and the presbyteral order (as two complementary orders of ministry) it inherits and shares the same tradition concerning rules of life, codes of conduct and “watching over one another in love”. The Methodist Diaconal Order has a clear (or specific) expectation and practice in these matters articulated in the sharing of a common rule of life.The declaration in the diaconal ordination service states that “You are to share fully in the life of your Order and to keep its discipline”. The sense of “watching over one another in love” is enacted in the area groups and through the Order’s Convocation. The annual inquiry as to the character and discipline of deacons and diaconal probationers is conducted through a rededication service at the Convocation, and assurances then given by the Warden of the Order on behalf of the Convocation to the Conference Diaconal Committee and, thereby, the Conference.

16.In the same period since 1974, the diversification in the ways that both presbyteral and diaconal ministry have been expressed has also posed questions about what commonality there could be within each order as well as between them, when, for example, not everyone could be in a weekly staff meeting, and also when the criteria for discernment of ministerial vocation were no longer self-evidently appropriate for all contexts. That led eventually to the report What is a Presbyter? adopted by the Conference in 2002, and What is a Deacon? in 2004. The former restates the definitive characteristic emphases of presbyteral ministry. It then concludes with three sections outlining ‘the Characteristics of a Presbyter’,‘the Tasks of a Presbyter’ and ‘the Accountability of a Presbyter’ (to God, to the Church,to ordained colleaguesand to others).

17.In recent years attention has been given to identifying criteria of competence and standards of practice, so that they can be used by the Church and its ministers in the process of discernment. The 2003 Conference approved Criteria for the Selection of Candidates for Ordained Ministry which were revised by the 2016 Conference. Attention has also been given to the tasks of ministry and in 2002 the Conference adopted the report Releasing Ministers for Ministry. That report identified the need to discuss the life of the minister in three ways – the Office to which the minister is called (as presbyter or deacon) which has a fundamental character the main features of which are expressed in the words of the Ordinal; the Being of the minister, which we understand to mean the habitus by which the presbyter or deacon lives out her or his calling; the Functioning of the minister, ie the way in which the minister’s being manifests itself in the tasks of ministry.

18.It is to that last category that the stipulations of the Code of Conduct need to apply. In order to be clear that the Code relates to our fundamental understanding of what it is to be a presbyter or deacon, the Code is laid out according to the revised Criteria for Selection and the three dimensions identified in Releasing Ministers for Ministry. None of this will appear unfamiliar to the presbyter or deacon who has nurtured her or his vocation and been faithful in watching over and being watched over in love. What is a Presbyter? reminded the Church that ministers are expected to behave “with integrity, competence and according to the best standards of practice towards those to whom she or he ministers.”

19.The Code therefore will remind ministers of the exemplary standards of behaviour which befit their calling as representative people. Occasionally, of course, ministers fail to live out their calling in the way that the Church reasonably expects them to do. Those who engage with such ministers in the processes of supervision approved by the Church, those who otherwise have oversight of them, and those who are recipients of their ministry, should find in the Code a canon against which (in)appropriate conduct and (in)competence can be identified and assessed.However, the Code should be seen primarily as aspirational; its purpose is not to incite guilt in the practitioner but to assist in the reasoned review of self and practice which is part of living and working accountably.

20.The commitment to be supervised is a key element of the Code. This means that the Code is integral to the processes of Ministerial Development Review as the agreed records of supervision which will be available to those involved in MDR will identify those areas that have been addressed which will themselves relate to (and be informed by) the Code.

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Draft Code of Conduct

The Office / Being / Functioning
Vocation (call and commitment) / ‘It is the universal conviction of the Methodist people that the office of Christian ministry depends upon the call of God’.[2] Throughout the process of candidating and training, men and women are tested on their call and asked if they remain persuaded that God has called them to ordained ministry in the Church. That call to ordained ministry is a particular expression of the vocation to discipleship which is shared by all members of the Church. Those ordained as presbyters and deacons ‘focus, express, and enable the ministry of the whole people of God.’[3] / Presbyters and deacons are people who witness to a sense of a distinct call to serve in the ministry to which they are ordained; and who are aware of the need continually to ask to what they are being called and to test the development of their call with others in the Church. They live with a conviction that for them the call to be a presbyter or deacon is part of and indispensable to the call to holiness which is common to all disciples but which finds different expression in each; this vocation however is not individualistic but is tested and affirmed by the community of disciples. Ministers therefore seek to discern their developing vocation (eg, at times of stationing) in dialogue with the Church and its processes. / All ministers should demonstrate:

• a willingness to give an account of the call to minister;
• preparedness to explore the developing sense of call with others (eg, spiritual director, minister exercising oversight, supervisor);
• commitment to affirm each year a continued sense of call to the ordained ministry of Christ’s Church;
• a recognition that the call to minister is discerned by the individual and by the Church together: and therefore
• a commitment to listen carefully to the narratives of vocation that others have to offer;
• a recognition that their own vocation needs constantly to be reviewed in the light of the Church’s needs in serving God’s mission in the world;
• obedience and commitment to the Church’s processes of discernment and stationing.

Vocation (ministry in the MCB) / Whilst the Methodist Church claims to ordain ‘not to a denomination, but to the presbyterate and diaconate of the One Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church’, Methodist presbyters and deacons exercise ministry within and as representatives of the Methodist Church in Britain.
This representative ministry is conducted alongside and in partnership with Christians of other denominations with whom the Methodist Church in Britain is commited to work for a fuller expression of God-given unity. / Deacons are people whose calling is to focus a servant ministry on behalf of the whole Church by enabling the ministry of others. They are required to live according to the Diaconal Order’s Rule of Life.
Presbyters are called to a “principal and directing part”in the life of the Church through the ministry of word, sacrament, and pastoral responsibility.
All ministers are called to work with colleagues from other denominations in a way which honours the others’ positions whilst maintaining their own identity as Methodist. /

• A commitment to work collaboratively with all other members of the Church (presbyters and deacons, lay officers and lay members).
• Participation (as required by Standing Orders) in regular Circuit staff meetings (or equivalent body) as an expression of collegiality and shared leadership.
• A respect for the significance and integrity of the ministry of the other order, and of lay officers and members.
• An understanding and appropriate use of the power implicit in the role of minister and an acceptance of accountability for the exercise of the office.
• For presbyters, a commitment to ‘watch over one another in love’ through attendance at and participation in the Synod and through less formal gatherings.
• For deacons, a commitment to life as members of the Methodist Diaconal Order
• A recognition that the conduct of the minister at all times should be that of a representative of the Methodist Church.
• A commitment to work with ecumenical colleagues in a spirit of trust and openness.

Relationship with God / Presbyters and deacons are first and foremost people of prayer. Presbyters and deacons commit themselves at ordination to ‘be faithful in worship, in prayer, [and] in the reading of the Holy Scriptures.’[4] / Ministers need to nurture a spiritual life that is authentic and disciplined and which is based on a confidence in God’s love for them and a sense of the call to perfect holiness. This spiritual life will be manifest in regular engagement with the means of grace in private devotion and in the life of the worshipping community. As for all Methodist disciples, this will include participation in public worship, regular communion, and prayer and Bible study in small groups. Ministers need to be those who are able to receive as well as to give in worship, fellowship, pastoral care, and mission. / All ministers should have: